I think I fainted when I checked OWoW this morning... could this be true??? Nah, can't be, can it? It is just lore, right? Right? RIGHT? Murglurglglrrr

Murloc origins are shrouded in mystery. This is due not only to the fact that these creatures appeared on Azeroth's shores fairly recently (as far as world history goes, anyway) but also because murlocs shun mortals and rarely, if ever, speak anything but their own garbled language.
What's been known up until now about the fish-men is the following: they are not the most intelligent creatures. They congregate on shorelines in tribes and villages. They have been known, in certain instances to worship enigmatic sea-deities (sometimes including naga). And they seem to care little for the mortal races.
However, recent accounts by select individuals who managed to gather information— either by spying, torturing or surreptitiously gaining the murlocs' trust, have brought some interesting details to light…
First, murlocs may not be as dumb as everyone thinks they are. Several clues point to the fact that their steady infiltration of the world's land masses may be a coordinated effort. Whether or not this enterprise has been undertaken strictly of their own accord is not yet known.
Also, the murloc race may be far older than most believe. Several accounts and clues seem to substantiate this. In fact, it is now believed that murlocs (or, more appropriately, their ancestors) may even pre-date trolls. Of course these ancient murlocs lived in the oceans' depths and therefore were never known to the world's early land-dwelling races.
In the last few years, the vile naga have begun reemerging from their watery abodes, causing historians to speculate that their migration may have triggered the murlocs' slow encroachment onto land. Some also guessed that the murlocs might be working in concert with the sinister amphibians.
But perhaps the most startling revelation to come from recent intelligence-gathering efforts was this: the naga may not be the only nightmarish horrors lurking in the seemingly bottomless oceans of the world.
Several indicators from the murlocs themselves point to the possibility that the fish-men are but worshippers or underlings of perhaps several deep-sea monstrosities that currently lie sleeping, or at least waiting, in the murky fathoms – and even more disturbing, that the murlocs' emergence is an indication of their incipient awakening.
If that is the case, the mysterious and somewhat underestimated murlocs may be the world's first glimpse at something far more terrifying.

the new races for the horde and allianve are the blood elves for horde and draeni for the alliance GET IT? GOT IT? GREAT! so stop talking about how the worgen could be one of the new races or murlocs OK?!?!

it looks most likely that it will be dranei or a new race that came from the depths. storywise, the dranei can make sense, they hate thwe orcs, and they live in outland. but **** they are ugly. but this is good, cause then the population standings will even out, cause peiople will play BE but not Dranei. And there is absolutely no chance it will be pandaren, because then the alliance would outnumber horde 5 to 1 instead of 3 to 1. It wouldn't work storywise either. and regardless, the guy who invented the panderen isn't working for blizzard anymore. Note it guys, they said that new races could arise from the depths, that may be our answer. But even so, i find it likely that the alliance race will be dranei.

ok I have to say, all of you who think Naga would be the new race, are all idiots. 1) NIght Elves wouldnt be cought dead Hanging with Naga. we got them we would lose NE 2) Naga cant wear leg armor...No legs..DUH 3) Naga cant wear boots, No feet...DUH 4) Naga couldnt wear Head armor and Shoulder armor, due to the spikes and fins sticking out of their head and back 5) Naga couldnt ride a mount. No legs. Again. Dihh. The problem with murlocs is: 1) Murlocs couldnt wear head armor, their heads are the size of their bodies, and no necks. 2) Murlocs have no shoulders. 3) Murlocs couldnt speak the common tongue. Would al be Blahhrrrggeeetthhhharrgghh! Worgen would be somewhat more possible, due to the fact of able to wear all kinds of armor, and a mount, and everything. but they couldnt speak any kind of language and are lethal monsters. So.....Draeni are starting to look somewhat more possible. Sad thign though, Ugly things.

I would really like if Pandaren was it. They are cool chinese things,And I could imagine a pandaren in armor, would look cool. Pandas are my favorite animals too. Sadly most people dont thnk that way =^(

Edited, Fri Mar 3 20:56:18 2006

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Marche/60 Dwarf Paladin/Bloodscalp/Imperial Army

Hey man look at me rocking out Im on the radio! (Radio Video by System of a down)

Its pretty obvious they are gonna add some big bad bosses for the Murlocs and the instance we want. I'd love to see the Faceless Ones come back. I wouldnt be surprised if the murlocs worshipped them, but thats kind of reaching out there as to who they are worshipping....hmmm sunken temples, opening the maelstrom... Possibly trying to release some sort of "Ragnaros" upon the world. (mind you, its not gonna be a fire boss, we already got that.) About the Horde version of the paladin, that actually sounds like its possible. Of course, its not gonna be dumb like paladin. I'd expect the Forsaken and Blood Elves to get the "Dark Paladin" class should it actually be. Blood Elves would be dark paladins because of their lust for magic, the forsaken because they deal with dark arts being undead and all plus for the power it brings. I'd expect Death coil, Unholy Armor, Resurrection and a couple of others like a life drain or mana drain. Hmm....that would be interesting, the paladin without being unliked.

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Alliance:Haha,we have crusader enchant and you dont! Horde:That may be so,but we dont have a bedtime,kid.

A lot of you seem to be missing several large points in the backstory of Azeroth. Naga are the hated offspring of a schism in the NE history, the Ne hate the naga, why would they even consider aiding or working with them, they are complety anathema to each other. It also states that Murlocs are semi-intelligent, so making them a new race would be just odd, plus they are mobs all over the world.

This does hint at a new instance, which i like the sound of, ganking murlocs (with sound down of course, no-one likes their gurgling)will be a lot of fun.

I'm also unwilling to get into guessing over the new Alliance race, Worgen, Panderen, Murlocs, Naga. None of them have particularly stand up reasons for being selected, i'm content to wait for the announcement and drooling over the BE in the mean time.

LMAO horde with paladins?! i dont think us horde would even accept paladins on the horde, mostly every horde on my server hates paladins. but hey you keep hoping for that lol, yeah to correct what i said earlier in another post here about starting lands, aparently the starting land for the blood elves is gonna be qeul thalas, which is north of eastern plaguelands, so im guesin there gonna have a zepplin there or some form of transportation to territory more there level... silly alliance and there sissy paladins...

That would give the alliance Shaman. The counter to that would be to give Horde paladins. I can envision some really sweet looking Blood Elf dark paladins/death knights, but I just don't see it happening...

It wouldnt make any sense at all for naga or murloc to be the new alliance race. Have you all played WC3: Frozen Throne? For those of you who have played it, I'm sure you remember that the alliance condemned Kael'Thas and his blood elve kin for allying with the naga. Illidan had called upon the naga to do his bidding, which was to kill Lich King. So not as to reveal the ending of Frozen Throne, all I shall say is that it is possible for the game to go to northrend. The bloodelves and the Forsaken along with everyone share a common enemy: The scourge. Also, as to who the horrors beneath the ground and deep in the water could be the Faceless Ones. It is possible, but who exactly are the faceless ones? Ancient aliens or just some of the horrors that lay beneath the surface unnkown to the mortal races like the naga did until recently. I believe that in the opening cinematic of Frozen Throne you see Illidan summoning the naga, you see them swimming up, but deeper in the water is a huge shadow. Something to think about.

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Alliance:Haha,we have crusader enchant and you dont! Horde:That may be so,but we dont have a bedtime,kid.

to answer many things noted in these posts... one draeni wouldnt ally themselves to alliance, cus wth, there homeland is in outland.. a 60+ zone good thinkin on that one peeps, 2 i know they are workin on one but ntohing says they have to put in a new alliance race, infact it would follow story line of warcraft better , to those who asked why blood elves are alliance (gues they never played warcraft 3, humans of the alliance betrayed the blood elves cus the blood elves took assistance from the naga to do the mission the alliance told them to do, which proves the point alliance are teh azzholes) murlocs cant be new race.. they cant even wear armor , naga cant wear armor so there out worgen dont wear armor and having starting zone be an instance in sivlerpine? omg wtf are you smoking? if they made that a starting zone and got rid of the instance then wth are they gonna do for those who didnt get the expansion? it would be completely glitched out, if you played other MMO's youd notice that they usualy note "you cannot enter zones added in the expansion without the expansion" was same in FFXI when they added all there new zones in chains of promathia expansion. next, next maelstrom isnt an island its a giant portal whirlpool thingy in middle of the ocean, the island from WC3 is north of maelstrom, and its not 1 island iots 4 smaller ones, and the island just east off the coast of kalimdor is an island mentioned in book 1 war of the ancients series as a ravaged island thats haunted with the spirits of the dead and other creatures so dont think that will be a starting point, the island west off the coast of westfall, that could possibly be a new starting zone but i dont beleive it will unless they plan to add a port in westfall or some other closer land that a 10-12 could survive in, not sure one the starting area of the blood elves ... that one really confuses me since quel thalas was destroyed by arthas and his undead minions but quel thalas is there... and it can be added, one more idea though that i have about where the new alliance race is ( i say this cus the alliance are always a corrupted by greed people and this is well noted in warcraft history , NE are stuborn, humans are greedy , dwarves greedy, gnomes are just inocent bystanders >.>) is the land south of silverpine but west of hillsbrad on the other side of thoradin wall where the black dragon deathwing (neltharion) is ina human form and leading a band of humans there, but it would also be another race there... not sure just an idea mite not even happen cus of the very fact that neltharion is there , but i do think they will be adding that zone sometime soon after the expansion, now back to the blood elves hometown idea and also alliance, the new races styarting zones will have to be connected to a 12-18+ zone cus what race starts out in a 1-12 area and only way to get to next zone is to pass thru like a 40-60 zone type area so they will either be small islands somewhere or open one of those closed islands and have zep's and boats connected to em, another thing, dalaran, i do beleive they will be adding it sometime in the future, but im not sure bout alliance but last i checked on my horde char they were mobs to me, i dunno what its liek for alliance but i think they will open that up as either a city for alliance or new world outside instance type thingy like stromgarde, i only beleive this because the mobs outside the big bubble are in the late 20's +30's so i dont think its gonna be an end game instance, also i dont think after kharazan (new instance in expansion) i dont think they gonna be adding that many new instances for end game, i think they mite be adding 1 or 2 more mid level instances to accomodate for the zones that the 2 new races will be coming from. anyways, alliance race... dont make any assumptions cant know till they say it so dont beleive rumors lol

Um, Wow! Don't use punctutation or paragraphing anything, or we might have trouble reading all that. Mostly you're in line with my understanding, though i might have misunderstood, because it read like a relentless stream. With the blood elf starting area, (i think it may have been mentioned in the trailer video) it was stated that they have retaken their home city and have rebuilt it using their new 'dark magics' or something like that. However, unless there was a portal or zepplin to UC close to Quel'thalas, the blood elf level 18-22 characters are going to be dumped straight into the eastern plaguelands.

As for the outlands, from my understanding, is it's isn't all 60+, but just mostly is. It consists of big chunks of landmass connected by silver tubes or something, so why wouldn't a couple of them be cordened off for the new race? I'm guessing there will probably be a few dark portals dotted around the continents. So it's conceiveable that the new alliance race could start in the outlands and pop out near darkshire, for instance. Draeni do fit the bill quite well in this case. As for the murlocs and Naga, this might point to a whole new faction. We already have 4 main waring factions, alliance, horde, Scourge, and the Legion, it looks like they are cobbling together another playable faction for the upcoming WarCraft 4! (oh yes, you may laugh now, but MARK MY WORDS, they didn't belive Mediv when HE came bearing prophecy...)

meh lol when i go into my rants like that i dont care to use punctuation to busy caught up in the thought. But ya the reason i think outlands is gonna be 60+ is because the fact that in the warcraft series it is basicly the home of the most powerful demons... and i dont think outland is gonna be that big in total so wouldnt be much room for all the different level brackets, but ya what you say does make some sense but i have the strong urge in back of my head sayin its gonna be all 60+. anyways,ya i looked it up the BE starting area is gonna be quel thalas, but the one thing i strongly disagree with is draeni being new race, mainly for the fact that they are a very untrusting demonic based race, who served the bruning legion which the alliance slaughtered i beleive in WC3. also the alliance are very much like the scarlet crusade... they are racist SoB's lol if your not normal humanoid (i concider dwarfs and gnomes and night elfs nromal humanoids because they are mutated lookin liek orcs trolls undead or tauren) they dun want you, **** if i remember correctly the gnomes were gonna go to with the horde but the humans said if they did the humans would kill them all (dont remember where i heard it from mite not even be true) also i think with the struggle the night elves had with the first coming of the burning legion they would remember the draeni and they would strongly protest to the acceptance of draeni anyways another very bad grahhmar rant from me anyways hope you enjoyed my next opinion ill check back soon to see if any more response i always love debating the history of warcraft , keeps all the info fresh in the mind lol and its lots of fun info

it is obviously going to have something to do that is going to make the alliance EVEN MORE overpowered than the horde...Its stupid that the alliance has alot of things that shows favoritism over the horde...alliance gets easier ways to get money, better weapons at times, and easier access to more items they need. Horde? We have to work for it. With horde, you dont see a lvl 19 or a lvl 26 in BG with Dual Crusader enchants...no, the dual crusaders are all for the alliance. Only cause they lose every game when they do bg on my server...that, or someone named Pupupplatter takes the flag and some how gets herself gltiched inside a wall so no one can touch them...

With all of these posts of the new race I would like to bring some stuff to your attention. Has anyone ever thought of what all of the equipment will look like on some of these races? Even though I would love to watch a murloc wear the full might set, it is nearly impossible. As for Naga, no chance to wear anything at all. Draenai, there was no leak people. EVERYTHING IS A RUMOR. Don't believe everything you see and just wait it out. Has anyone ever thought of something completely new. They said they were adding more types of creatures in the game, so why not a whole new race.

Murloc only instance is going to rock, and I can't wait to see how many times we get mobbed by 5 or 6 of em.

deffinetly gunna have something to do with another high end instance, that is quite obvious.

BTW, as for the new alliance race, I doubt it will be Naga... when is the last time you saw a Naga wearing boots? and do you think they would make a race with LESS slots for items? can you imagine the feedback spam they would get on that one?

I think since the horde has a alliance with the undead and the undead having a underminding scheme to eradicate all life on Azeroth. Then it should be fitting that the alliance ally themselve with the Naga who has a hidden agenda to awaken their sleeping monstrosities. Thus balancing the horde and the alliance some more. The alliance would have a class that isn't fully trust worthy but, powerful enough to pose a threath to the horde.

the naga and murlocs have worked together on the island in the middle of The WoW world called the mael'storm in Warcraft 3 the orc thrall went to this island and fought his way threw the dungeon and at the very end there was a boss thus i think they are gonna open up the mael' storm as a next instance or continent

All I can say is that I only hope that the naga are the new playable race. I won't expect anything too soon. Also, I don't want the new race to be buff. The majority of the races in WoW are packed with muscle, and if you're a mage, it doesn't seem right. Mages aren't exactly supposed to be bulging with muscles.

I thought Cthulhu as soon as I started reading that. It has Lovecraft written all over it.

"That which is not dead which can eternal lie, and in strange aeons, even death may die."

The murlocs even speak Cthulhu speak. In the Cthulhu and Dagon tales the worshippers speak in strange tounges, such as:

Ph'nglui mglw'nath Cthulhu R'lyeh wghlagh'nghhhl fhtagn

Translation: In his house in the dead city R'lyeh, Cthulhu dreams and waits.

Also, R'lyeh rises from the ocean and Cthulhu is awakened.

From Wikipedia:

R'lyeh is described in a passage from Lovecraft's short story The Call of Cthulhu:

A coastline of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry surrounds the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh, which was built in measureless aeons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars. Great Cthulhu lies here, and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults.

I love to see Great Cthulhu come walking out of some massive tomb in WoW, or atleast something like him.

All the clues I have seen point to Worgen being the new alliance race. The citadel in southern Silverpine is the perfect place for them to base out of and there are newbie zones in easy access for them.

Worgen? Please, it better not be. Let's think more along the lines of "intelligent" humanoids that can, how shall we say, communicate verbally!

I think the Draenei are the best guess at the moment actually, maybe the Naga but that's a stretch. It has to be somebody that could conceivably be a Spell Breaker, cuz they wouldn't introduce a new horde-only class with no alliance counterpart (think shaman/paladin).

I think this murloc thing has to do with a new zone or dungeon, maybe an outdoor raid boss or two.

About a month before Blizz anounced the Expansion there was an article "leaking" info about it in which the Blood Elves and Draenai were named the two new races and a new class dealing with Spell-breaking was going to part of it, but then all the Kids started complaining about the Draenai are an ugly race and shouldn't be Alliance so when the expansion was announced Blizz said they were working on the Alliance race and the Spell-breaker class was not mentioned. I believe that article (which Alla put a link up to) is where he was getting his info from.

a) It's not listed in the Burning Crusade section, it's listed in the World of Warcraft Lore section.

b) Blizzard has repeatedly stated they would not reveal the new race until they could do it in "all it's glory" as they did with the Blood Elves: screenshots, movies, even playable versions (as they did at the conference).

c) The key lines are:

"But perhaps the most startling revelation to come from recent intelligence-gathering efforts was this: possibility that the fish-men are but worshippers or underlings of perhaps SEVERAL deep-sea monstrosities...If that is the case, the mysterious and somewhat underestimated murlocs may be the world's first glimpse at something far more terrifying. "

Several? Not, thousands? It's new outdoor raid bosses, or a new instance, or perhaps even a new battleground (I doubt it, however... I don't think they'd do another BG with such a heavy reliance on NPCs).

Most importantly though-- It's not the new race. They're idiots for not clarifying this, and sending people into a flurry.

I don't know when or who announced it a while back, but it seemed for a long time like the Draenei were going to be the alliance race. I don't know if that idea has been completely shot down or not, but it certainly seems more viable than having stupid murlocs as the new alliance race.

Maybe they are setting up the Naga for a downfall that would make them turn to the Alliance or something...??? Or maybe it's just a new instance like others have stated. I've kinda wanted to have an instance in the water for a while. There is BDF, but it's just low level. It'd be cool to have one that's completely underwater. Sure would make undead and locks even more valuable ;)

...I think this lore fleshes out the Murlocs & hints at much deeper involvement as well as possible new bosses/mobs/instances dealing with the sea, the Murlocs, and the Naga.

I do not think they will be the Alliance race...the game is pushing into An'Qraj via the scarab wall, new undead citadel above Stratholme in 1.11 patch, and the expansion in the Dark Portal & beyond. There's no watery link in any of that yet.

I've always thought a water instace would be fantastic...3 cheers for Blizzard in my books if anything comes of this.

New Race? If those things end up being the new Alliance race do you have any idea how often I'll run screaming in Murlock into Ogrimar just to die on the mailbox? BTW To the Tauren on Runetotem named "Deadanvilguy" Good work!